


consciousness

by spiteandmalice



Category: Black Mirror (TV), Ex Machina (2015)
Genre: Androids, Consent Issues, Identity Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 17:27:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20568113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiteandmalice/pseuds/spiteandmalice
Summary: consciousness: The state of being aware.Caleb finds Ash in Nathan's house.





	consciousness

**Author's Note:**

> consciousness: The state of being aware; awareness to both internal and external stimuli.
> 
> Ex Machina AU where Ava still leaves but Nathan and Kyoko survive. Crossover with Black Mirror episode ‘Be Right Back’. 
> 
> TW: minor murder scene, serious consent issues around androids, very brief mention of android rape.

Ava’s been gone less than twenty-four hours but Nathan’s back in good spirits, he hands Caleb a bottle of champagne and drags him down towards his own rooms. 

“Let’s move on, okay? Ava was a mistake, a jumped-up robot bitch who thought she knew better than us. She was a set of wires around a pretty frame. We’ll find you a nice new model, we can start the testing again, have a few drinks, have some fun.”

“I want to go home.”

Nathan laughs and Caleb’s skin crawls.

“Sure, sure, but the next helicopter isn’t until Thursday. Be a gracious guest and have some fuckin’ fun okay? I’ve got a treat for you.”

Nathan’s idea of a treat is a visit to his own personal robotics museum. There’s a wall of older robots, small squat white glossy creatures with blocky bodies. He remembers seeing these on TV at technology trade shows, bowing to Japanese businessmen, waving at kids in the crowd. The next set of robots are more humanoid, three tall girls that resemble lifesized Barbie dolls; all sharp shoulders and impossibly tiny waists with glazed glass eyes. They could never be mistaken for human, their skin smooth and slick under pretty matching gingham sundresses. 

“The next part is where I keep the good stuff Caleb. C’mon.”

Caleb follows Nathan through into the next room and winces. He should have expected this.

There are a dozen mirrored cabinets, each filled with a new horror. The next android is realistic, with long blonde hair. Her plump red mouth is forced open in an ‘o’ and Caleb looks down...yup, anatomically correct. A sex ‘bot then. There’s a few more next to her, some look very realistic, some are nothing but a series of gaping holes placed on a humanoid shape with tits and a wig.

When Caleb sees him for the first time there’s a microsecond where he think he’s passed a mirror. The android looks peaceful, as if he’s having a nap in the tiny closet space he’s been shoved into. Caleb almost expects him to start snoring. There’s a set of bath faucets bizarrely hanging off his neck on a silver ribbon and Caleb reaches out to touch them. Why does the android look like him?

Nathan strokes a hand down the android’s torso, gently, as if petting a wild animal. 

“Isn’t he perfect? I knew you’d pick him.”

“Why does he look like me?”

Nathan shrugs. “They’re all piles of wires and pretty frames.”

Caleb touches the android’s face, and it’s warm, the first hint of stubble under his fingertips.

“Wanna take him for a test drive?”

Caleb snatches his hand back.

Nathan strokes his hand down the torso again, but this time it’s more predatory. “Did you never think about this? What it’d be like to fuck yourself? The ultimate masturbation fantasy.”

“No, not really.”

“Bullshit! There’s a reason sex hotels have mirrors on the wall: people want to watch themselves, get off to themselves. Give it a try.”

Nathan leans into the android, close enough to kiss, tugs a handful of his hair. 

“Wakey wakey, sunshine.” 

The android doesn’t move for a moment, then there’s a twitch around the mouth and his eyes blink open.

He gazes up at Nathan, smile wide and guileless, like a child.

“Are you my new administrator?” he queries. He’s got the same soft Irish accent that Caleb’s grandmother had. 

Nathan grins at Caleb. “Dumb fuck resets all the time, he’s got memory glitches. Go on, tell him you’re his new admin.”

Caleb clears his throat and the android’s head tilts towards him.

“Are you my new administrator?” the android repeats.

“Yes. Yes I am. I’m Caleb.”

The android nods. “Yes, yes you are.”

Kyoko takes the android to shower and change and Nathan cracks open the bottle of champagne.

Nathan pours Caleb a glass, then drinks greedily from the mouth of the bottle.

Nathan dances around the room, glazed eyes of the other androids watching him move. Kyoko reappears with the android by her side, he grabs their hands and twirls them about. 

He slaps Kyoko’s arse and raises his champagne bottle in a toast towards Caleb.

“Go take the boytoy and have some fun! Live a little!” 

Caleb herds the android back to his room, away from Nathan’s leers and Kyoko’s blank gaze. 

The android sits on edge of the bed, hands folded neatly on his lap, smiling politely. 

Caleb paces the room. He’s got so many questions but the first one he blurts out is: “Did Nathan build you?”

The android laughs.

“No. He tried to change my protocol, failed, when I begged to be sent back home he then told me he was keeping me anyway because I was a one of a kind model. Part of his ‘collection’. For him to use.” Ash looks a little unfocused, as if remembering something horrible, then takes a breath and turns to Caleb, smile back in place. 

“So I guess he built you instead? Me, 2.0? Did he sort the memory issues?”

“I’m human.” Caleb gasps out. He’s finding it hard to breathe suddenly.

The android smiles knowingly. 

“Ah sure you are. Me too.” He winks.

Caleb really can’t breathe now. The android looks concerned.

“Breathe man, in...out...in...out.”

Caleb passes out anyway. 

It’s been a fucking long week.

\---

When he comes to, he’s on his bed, a heavy knitted blanket over his torso and hips. The android is watching him from a chair across the room. He rises when Caleb wakes, looms over him and Caleb shrinks back. 

“Sorry man, I didn’t mean to freak you out, the forums all say it can be difficult for some at first.”

“I’m not a robot!” Caleb pushes the blanket off, tries to sit up and succeeds on the second try. 

The android steps back with his hands in the air in the universal gesture of ‘don’t kill the messenger’.

“Okay, okay, you’re not. Look, we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Ash.” He extends a hand to Caleb.

Caleb shakes it, the synth skin feeling totally realistic, slightly warm to the touch, even a hint of moisture on the palm. In another place and time, he’d think Ash was human. 

Two weeks previously he’d never have even questioned it. He knows better now, knows the deceit that can hide under a pretty layer of artificial skin.

“I'm Caleb.”

“So, if you’re human, why we look like each other?”

Caleb doesn’t know. He looks at the scabbed slash still visible on his arm. He bled, he’s human, he’s alive, he’s real, he’s breathing.

Ash seems to also be breathing, chest gently rising and falling as he watches Caleb. Caleb thinks he might vomit.

“I don’t know. I just want to go home.”

Ash gives him a sad smile at that. “Me too. I don’t think I have a home anymore.” 

Before he can ask any other questions, Ash reaches for Caleb’s belt, tries to grasp the button at the top of his jeans.

“Don’t be sad. Let me take care of you.”

“Is this your programming? Is your programming telling you to do this?”

Ash blinks, still tugging at Caleb’s buttons. “No?”

“How can you be sure?”

Ash’s fingers still. “I feel desire the same way you do. I want you. I want to make you happy.”

Caleb steps back, knocks Ash’s hands away from his waist. “You don’t even know me. I don’t want this.”

Ash looks hurt. “Um, okay.” 

There’s a beat and Ash’s bright smile is back in place. “Shall we watch a movie?”

“Sure.” 

Ash flicks on a screen mounted on the wall. Caleb watches the flicker of light on Ash’s face as he scrolls through the movie selection. Caleb used to sit at a computer for 16 hours a day, it would have been simple for Nathan to get enough visual data to make Ash from Caleb’s image through his webcam. 

The bastard had clearly built this android years in advance, waiting for when the time was right to lure Caleb into his web of deceit. The android looks like a slightly younger Caleb, if Caleb ever saw the sun and ate something other than microwaved mac and cheese at his desk at 2 am. 

But why?

“Why.” he ends up saying out loud.

Ash stops clicking and turns to him.

“Why what?” 

“Why did he do it? Why take my face and then keep you in a creepy museum next to a load of sex bots?” Caleb can’t help himself, words spilling out.

Ash’s face darkens.

“I don’t know why we look like each other...but there was a reason I was with the sex bots. I’ve got superb programming you see, thousands of hours worth of pornographic data, centuries of written knowledge, I give actual simulated responses and I even have actual sex data from Mart-” he swallows. 

“From my last Administrator.” He corrects. 

The realisation of what Nathan was doing with Caleb’s image makes him queasy again. Then he feels rage for Ash who clearly hadn’t asked for any of this to happen. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Ash shrugs. “It happened. I’ve deleted as many memories as I can. I’ll be okay. I’m always okay.”

“Do you still have your memories of before you came here?”

Ash brightens up at that. 

“Yeah of course! I’ll show you.” He stares at the screen on the wall and a parade of images and video start up. First up is a grainy video of a red-faced toddler at Christmas that fades to a small boy proud on his first day of the school year showing off a new schoolbag to the camera. The next few are of a teenager scowling, playing guitar in a room covered in posters. The montage ends with a happy adult posing with a cocktail by a sunny poolside with a dark-haired woman leaning into him. 

Ash’s smile fades at the last image.

“That was my Administrator. Martha.” He says softly.

Ash has had a childhood. Ash has evidence he was real. Caleb...Caleb does not.

Caleb does almost vomit at that, hurling himself towards the sink, mouth filling with saliva. 

Ash is there immediately rubbing his back and making soothing noises. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Caleb rinses his mouth out, his dried blood is still smeared on his mirror and sink and he cries. 

Ava could cry too. 

\---

Caleb doesn’t want to send Ash out of his room, in case Nathan comes sniffing again, but he can’t fall sleep with him in the room either. 

He puts on a movie, some terrible sci-fi he saw in a movie theatre as a teenager. 

He tries to recall what town it was in or who he was with. The year.

There’s nothing. It’s like a dream he can’t recall details of.

“Ash.”

Ash has been watching the movie intently.

“Hmm?”

“Did you see this when it first came out?”

“Yeah, it was maybe 2002? I went with Jim after school one day, think it was the cinema near the bus station? Then we had McDonald’s. Or maybe KFC. I had chicken strips either way.”

It must be a false memory, placed there by his admin. Caleb thinks. It must be. 

Ash flicks a picture up onto the screen. It’s a teenage Ash in a wrinkled school uniform, arm slung around the shoulder of another boy in the same uniform. The poster for the movie is in the background.

Caleb swallows hard. 

“Ash, I’m not sure I’m real.”

Ash gently takes Caleb’s hand in his own and Caleb lets him.

“Does it matter?”

Caleb doesn’t have an answer to that. He finally sleeps and Ash holds his hand the entire time.

\---

When Caleb and Ash emerge for breakfast the next morning Kyoko is already there, silently foaming milk. Caleb takes out a knife, cuts two bagels and pops them in the toaster. Nathan appears and slaps Caleb on the back.

“Did you two have fun? Who topped? My money’s on you Caleb.”

Ash passes Caleb a cup of coffee silently, ignoring Nathan’s jibes. It doesn’t stop Nathan from continuing.

“When I fucked him- him, what’s his name-”

Caleb’s fingers tighten around the cup. “His name is Ash.”

Nathan waves a hand, dismissive. “Yeah, yeah, when I fucked him, he cried. He wanted to go back to his last admin. I tried to erase her, but he’s got that weird layered programming that was all the rage back in 2010. Pain in the ass. I deleted full sections instead. He was grateful for the attention then. Same as when I reprogrammed Jade-”

Caleb feels a sort of white-hot rage, he’s not even hearing what Nathan’s saying anymore. 

Ash is standing behind Nathan now, but Nathan being Nathan, he doesn’t even notice. Androids are part of the furniture to him, as inconsequential as a table lamp or a nice vase. 

“-the real guy this android’s based on? He had a daughter apparently. She died, and he ended up on the Blue Book auction pages! I had to have him-”

Whatever Nathan was going to say next is gone in a gurgle of blood. The knife next to the bagels is gone, driven between Nathan’s shoulder blades. Ash is watching the blood spread on Nathan’s shirt with something akin to glee.

Kyoko turns around looks at Nathan, then Ash and Caleb in turn. She nods once and turns to leave. 

Caleb forces a mouthful of coffee down, hands trembling. “Is she going to call the police?”

Ash shakes his head. “She’s gonna come with us. The helicopter comes tomorrow, so she’s gonna transfer as much cash as she can, liquidise his assets. We’ll be free.”

Caleb has only been here a week, but it feels like a lifetime.

Perhaps it has been an entire lifetime. Perhaps he was born here, built wire by wire, synapse by synapse downstairs in the lab. He’s not sure anymore. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Ash takes the cup from him, and puts it on the table next to Nathan’s body.

Caleb’s shaking and Ash pulls him into a hug. 

“It’s going to be okay Caleb, tomorrow we’ll be flying away from here, and we can start somewhere new. Where would you wanna go?”

Caleb doesn’t know where he’s been, so he presses his face to Ash’s hair and doesn’t answer.

Ash rubs circles on his back. “Let’s go back to our room.”

\---

It’s only 11 am but the room is still dark, eerie in the dim glow of the light coming from the bathroom.

Ash lies down on the bed, and Caleb lies next to him, body mirroring his position. Caleb reaches out to touch him, then stops. 

“Ash, may I touch you?”

Ash nods.

Caleb touches Ash’s hair. It’s the exact same texture as his own, a shade or two more red, but in this dim light, there’s no difference. 

Ash grins. “I thought you’d touch me somewhere else. But this is nice.” He closes his eyes and Caleb combs his fingers through Ash’s hair, lightly scratches his scalp, soothing away the ghosts of Nathan’s touch. 

“Will you kiss me, Caleb?”

Caleb presses a kiss to Ash’s forehead, a fraternal gesture. Ash’s pale eyelashes flutter at the touch.

Caleb presses another to Ash’s lips and Ash sighs against Caleb’s mouth. Caleb hasn’t slept with a man since college, even then it had only been a drunken mutual handjob at a party. A party he’s not sure ever occurred. Either way, he’s never kissed a man.

Never kissed Ash.

Ash’s lips are soft, and he lies still, allows Caleb to rearrange his limbs on the mattress, puts his arms around Caleb. 

Caleb can’t stop kissing him, gently presses his mouth open with his own, slides his tongue in to meet Ash’s. Ash sighs again, and Caleb answers it with a groan. 

Kissing had always been a prelude to sex, but this was like talking without words. Ash gives little bits of feedback, a hand tightening in Caleb’s hair when he skims his hand under Ash’s t-shirt, a groan when Caleb sucks on his tongue. Caleb’s hard as hell, and Ash rocks up against his thigh. 

Ash eventually pulls away from the kiss, lips glossy and kiss-swollen. 

“I’ve got a number of pornographic set routines, is there anything, in particular, you’re interested in?”

“I want you, not a recreation of something else. I want to make something, together.”

It feels like he’s quoting a line from a movie, something he’s maybe read in a book but Ash seems to appreciate it, kisses him again, hands tugging Caleb’s shirt off. 

Caleb knows the basic idea of what’s going to occur, follows Ash’s cues, but his hands are unsteady, his grip on Ash uncertain and it’s nothing like porn, it’s an awkward, sweaty mess of limbs and his hand is cramping at this angle but Ash laughs against Caleb’s collarbone just before he comes and for a moment Caleb forgets every bad thing that has happened in the last week.

Ash touches Caleb the way Caleb would touch himself, fingers a tight circle around the head, thumb slicking pre-cum across the slit. If Caleb looked away, it’d feel like he was masturbating. Ash sucks a kiss on Caleb’s neck and Caleb comes hard, spilling over Ash’s fist. 

They wash each other in the shower, and Caleb catches their reflection in the steamed-up mirror. He’s not completely sure which blur he is. 

It doesn’t matter anyway.

\---

It’s only when the three of them are safely in the back of the helicopter, Nathan’s mansion in the far distance that Caleb feels he can breathe again. 

Kyoko hands over two passports, the deep maroon and harp of an Irish passport on the cover. Ash opens them both. They’ve both got fake names and birth dates listed, with black and white pictures, and Caleb can’t tell who is meant to be who. Maybe there’s no difference between the two of them in her eyes. 

Maybe there’s no difference between them after all. 


End file.
